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Dr. Christine Beresniova

Takiff Foundation Fellow
“Mapping Transnational Holocaust Discourses and Historicizing Local Knowledge in Post-Soviet Lithuanian Educational Reforms.”

Professional Background

Dr. Christine Beresniova recently completed her PhD at Indiana University, Bloomington, and currently works as an online anthropology instructor at Ashford University.  She is a native speaker of English, possesses language skills in Lithuanian, and can read French and German. While in residence at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Dr. Beresniova conducted research on her project “Mapping Transnational Holocaust Discourses and Historicizing Local Knowledge in Post-Soviet Lithuanian Educational Reforms.”

Previous presentations given by Dr. Beresniova include "Reclaiming the Nation: Teacher Empowerment, Policy Implementation and the Politics of Memory in Lithuanian Educational Programs for Tolerance" at the American Anthropological Association Annual Conference in November 2013 and "Navigating the Nation: Narratives in Post-Soviet Lithuanian Educational Experiences" for the Vilnius Symposium on Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Issues at the Lithuanian Institute of History in December 2012.  Dr. Beresniova has also received multiple grants and fellowships. She participated in the Museum Teacher Fellowship Program for advanced educators of the Holocaust at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and also received an East European Studies Summer Research Scholarship through the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 2013. 

Fellowship Research

For her Takiff Foundation Fellowship at the Mandel Center, Dr. Beresniova examined the state of Holocaust education in post-Soviet Lithuania in its broader historical and international context, using the Memoirs of Freda Karpul, the Records Relating to the Soviet Union under Nazi Occupation, and archives on the controversial Lithuanian Ambassador to Germany, Kazys Škirpa, to answer key questions about the impact of intersections between local historical landscapes and transnational discourses on Holocaust education and remembrance.

Dr. Christine Beresniova was in residence at the Mandel Center from July 1 to December 31, 2014.